“Well, Warren Harding, I have got you the presidency.
What are you going to do with it?”Florence Harding (15 Aug 1860 – 21 Nov 1924)

Thus the ‘pushy’ wife of one of our (by seemingly general consensus) less esteemed leaders upon his election (in 1920) to the highest office in the land. I think it’s sorta cute in a steel-fist-in-a-velvet-glove kind of way, and I read a longish and probably not uninteresting marital history underpinning that utterance.

Of course it reminds me of that notorious quip (“Be careful what you wish for!”) about having one’s wish fulfilled that, ultimately, only eventuates in disaster.

First is the problem of now being in big-time debt to the some-body/-bodies – whether human or divine – for seeing to it that you got what you once so fervently believed you wanted. How can repayment be made, if ever?

Second, in this particular instance, was the man man enough to handle the job? Or would he have been better off eschewing national office and just staying a big fish in the smaller pond of Ohio politics?

And, third, nobody can unwish wishes realized.

For my part, I’d like to torque Florence’s comment and apply it to one or two post-Harding prexies of whom one might well have asked – or ask – “Well, all your lies got you the presidency, and then look what you went and did with it!”